#36 Welcome back to Diversity Secrets Podcast!

Season 4 of Diversity Secrets concludes with a crucial conversation on Diversity Fatigue—what it is, why it happens, and how to tackle it. Host Louise welcomes Alexia Sena, founder of Joyeux Bazar and author of Understanding Racism and Antisemitism (get the book here), and Camille Fant, Global CSR lead at Akeneo, to unpack the physical, mental, and emotional toll of DEI work.

As a wrap-up to a season filled with reflections on the challenges and opportunities for DEI, this episode highlights the importance of recognizing fatigue and building resilience to sustain long-term impact. Our guests share how DEI professionals can recognize signs of Diversity Fatigue in themselves and their organizations, along with practical tips to address it when it arises for both DEI practitioners and employees.

Connect with Alexia Sena on LinkedIn and Camille Fant on LinkedIn.

Don’t miss this thoughtful conclusion to our season of reflection and action.

Curious to learn more about Diversity Secrets Agency Training & Consulting services? Get in touch: louise@diversitysecrets.co
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#35 Welcome back to Diversity Secrets Podcast!

This is episode 2 of a 2-part series where we explore the ins and outs of deploying a diversity and inclusion survey in organizations in Europe.

To help us unpack this complex topic, we have the pleasure of welcoming Eileen Barnard, Principal Organisational Culture Manager - DE&I at Babbel, one of the leading language learning platforms globally. Eileen designed and rolled out her company’s first DEI survey this year, and agreed to take us through the step by step process, sharing her tips for success. If you’re thinking of rolling out a DEI survey in your organization these 2 episodes are for you!

In our last episode, Eileen shared about how to design a GDPR-compliant DEI survey, which stakeholders to get on board and what type of prework you need to do in order to make sure that the survey is in line with your culture and makes sense to your people, so that they feel comfortable filling it out.

In this episode we’re going to discuss employee participation rate, how to analyse survey results, as well as the challenges of sharing them in the organization. We also explore how to use these results to transform policies and drive real change in the organization. Eileen's advice is pragmatic, actionable and relatable!

Eileen is happy to answer questions and share the set of questions she used in the DE&I survey at Babbel. To reach out to her, please fill out this Form.

Curious to learn more about Diversity Secrets Agency Training & Consulting services? Get in touch: louise@diversitysecrets.co
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Curious to learn more about Diversity Secrets Agency Training & Consulting services? Get in touch: louise@diversitysecrets.co
Your feedback helps us grow: add a review wherever you’re listening to this podcast!
Find us on LinkedIn

#34 Welcome back to Diversity Secrets Podcast!
Today, let’s dive into the complex and often taboo topic of measuring diversity in organizations in Europe.

There’s a running myth in most European countries that collecting sensitive data on ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and other diversity characteristics is simply illegal and therefore impossible. But that’s not true. Yes, Europe’s stringent regulations around data privacy, most notably the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) makes collecting sensitive data a challenge. However, data privacy regulation should not be an excuse standing in the way of progress for DEI, no matter how delicate a task.

Luckily, to guide us through the tricky process, we have with us Eileen Barnard, Principal Organisational Culture Manager - DE&I at Babbel (language e-learning platform). She’s done all the hard work of designing a GDPR-compliant DE&I survey, so you don’t have to! Make sure to grab a pen and paper to note down her precious step-by-step advice. In this 1st episode of a 2-part series, Eileen shares all the pre-work that goes into designing a DE&I survey in Europe: legal compliance, stakeholders to partner with in your organization, survey questions that make sense to your people.

Tune in next month for part 2: Eileen will share her insights on rolling out the survey, and analyzing the findings.

Eileen is happy to answer questions and share the set of questions she used in the DE&I survey at Babbel. To reach out to her, please fill out this Form.

Curious to learn more about Diversity Secrets Agency Training & Consulting services? Get in touch: louise@diversitysecrets.co
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#33 Welcome back to Diversity Secrets Podcast!

Numerous articles are pointing to what is being called the rise and fall of DEI. After the protests following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, many companies pledged to increase their investment in DEI initiatives, leading to a two-year boom in DEI funding and staffing around the globe. However, DEI initiatives seemingly lost steam in 2023, with many of those very same organizations making pledges in 2020, cutting back on their DEI efforts, in a context of backlash, pushback, as well as political and regulatory pressure targeted at DEI programs. Within 3 years, DEI went from being the right thing to do in business, to being a largely controversial topic in the corporate world and in our societies at large.

Taking a step, back, is DEI's peak really behind us? How can organizations and practitioners continue delivering on commitments made in 2020? How de we get out of this extreme-to-extreme DEI and ensure sustainable results over controversy? As an industry, how can we regain credibility, and change the narrative to highlight what DEI really is: inclusive and equitable societies for all!

With over 15 years of experience leading DEI initiatives at a global scale, and as former Global Chief Diversity Officer at Google, Sanofi, Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb, Wema Hoover, shares with us her unique insights and perspective to better understand this DEI crisis. (visit Wema's website here)

Curious to learn more about Diversity Secrets Agency Training & Consulting services? Get in touch: louise@diversitysecrets.co
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#32 Welcome back to Diversity Secrets Podcast!
June is around the corner and companies around the globe are getting ready to celebrate Pride Month.

While more and more organizations are being proactive in their LGBTQ+ inclusion, even LGBTQ+ friendly companies usually focus more on the “LGB” than on the “TQ+.”
So at Diversity Secrets we wanted to mark this year’s Pride Month by slightly shifting the focus. We invited Magda Stega, DEI practitioner and LGBTQ+ advocate, to discuss how to create inclusive workplaces for transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

In this honest conversation, Magda shares with us her personal journey, as well as her HR expertise on building inclusive workplaces. We share concrete tips and advice for organizations to transform their recruitment processes, their management practices, rethink their employee benefits, and their culture in order to support transgender and gender non-conforming colleagues. From the small actions with big impact, to what being an ally really means.

Tune in to find out!

Additional resources:

• EU Fundamental Rights Agency, 2024 Survey: LGBTIQ equality at a crossroads: progress and challenges
• Harvard Business Review, Creating a trans-inclusive workplace
• Human Rights Campaign, Trans toolkit for employers
• Human Rights Watch, Germany Landmark Vote for Trans Rights Law
• McKinsey, Being Transgender at work (includes glossary)

Curious to learn more about Diversity Secrets Agency Training & Consulting services? Get in touch: louise@diversitysecrets.co
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#31 Welcome back to Diversity Secrets Podcast!

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) leaders are driven by two things: passion for humanity, equity and inclusivity, and their will to create systemic change. In other words, the perfect mix for potential burn-out! So how can we achieve systemic change for DEI, in line with our passion, without running out of fuel along the way? What stakeholders, allies, and systems can we rely on in our organizations to increase our impact and safeguard our mental health as DEI advocates?

To help us explore this topic, we're very excited to welcome Dharshni Padayachee. A charted accountant by profession, Dharshni switched career paths to lead Inclusion, Equity and Diversity at a large corporate and investment bank in South Africa. She shares with us how she finds balance between passion and strategy, to achieve impactful results for inclusion in the workplace.

To follow Dharshni's work, don't hesitate to connect with her on Linkedin.

Curious to learn more about Diversity Secrets Agency Training & Consulting services? Get in touch: louise@diversitysecrets.co
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#30 B, from Belonging, is the new letter that we increasingly find attached to the Diversity Equity and Inclusion acronym: DEIB. As an industry, we've reached the tacit agreement that the success of DE&I in a company is measured by the feeling of Belonging of its employees. But what does Belonging really mean to each of us? What does it take to belong, and who is made accountable for the act of 'Belonging'? Pushed to its limits, can Belonging fall in a performative trap and end up hurting those of us who most long to belong?

To unpack the complex concept of Belonging, we are joined by Apolline, Founder of La Piscine Media (if you're a French Speaker, sign up to Apolline's newsletter to continue unpacking topics related to diversity, inclusion and purpose at work).

This is a new episode format: candid conversations with DE&I peers to unpack relevant DE&I topics. Let us know if you like it!

Cited resources:

• The subtle difference between Inclusion and Belonging, Academy to Innovate HR
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Wikipedia
• Rethinking Belonging as a Group Effort, Sohra Behmanesh on TBD*
• White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch, Netflix

Curious to learn more about Diversity Secrets Agency Training & Consulting services? Get in touch: louise@diversitysecrets.co
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#29 Today we welcome Nichelle Appleby, Founder of Work Imagined Compensation and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultancy.
Nichelle is putting pay equity and dignity back at the heart of DE&I. With multiple years of experience in compensation and compliance, Nichelle is helping organizations committed to DE&I put their money where their mouth is. In capitalistic societies where value, self-worth and respect are largely derived from the amount of our pay-check, pay equity takes a whole new dimension in building dignified and inclusive work places.
Nichelle is also the creator of what she calls the Dignity Standard, a framework to help DE&I leaders reframe their work around what she considers the bedrock for workplace inclusion: dignity.
Tune in to find out what it's all about!
If you’d like to follow Nichelle’s work, do visit www.workimagined.com or her LinkedIn.

Curious to learn more about Diversity Secrets Agency Training & Consulting services? Get in touch: louise@diversitysecrets.co
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